Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
This sounds like you're saying most economists are way way off.
Economists themselves argue about this stuff. The spectrum of economists ranges from those who are free market advocates in virtually every way (like Bob Murphy), to free market advocates in almost all (but not all) ways (like Scott Sumner), to free market advocates in most ways but not when it comes to their political emotions (like Paul Krugman).

Oh. I thought you were basing your ideas on Friedman's, I didn't realise you'd progressed beyond him into your own realm of understanding. Well done!
I am deeply influenced by him. My influences are mainly Friedman, Sumner, Caplan, and the stuff I read in economics textbooks. A lot of economists think there is a problem among many economists in forgetting what the textbooks teach. I think it is not only that but that most economists too readily set aside what I think is the most important skill economists have: deducing from economic principle. Perhaps an example of this is how much we've heard economists discuss the minimum wage like it's anything other than creationism or flat earth-ism. The econometric approach to minimum wage makes it look like there is something worth looking at, but this is because the econometric approach provides very little evidence from which conclusions can be made. This instills poor habits in economists and misleads the public. What economists should instead do on the minimum wage (most of them do this fwiw, just not all) is point out that the law of demand and not-exactly-a-law of supply are theory as rock solid as theories get, and it is in a very simple deduction from them that an increase in the minimum wage is expected to decrease the demand for labor and/or increase the price of goods/services. Econometricians have a hard time showing this happen but that's because econometrics doesn't have the tools to show it happen in the first place.